


The Winter from Her Leaving

by fitzsimmonsshield



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 09:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 14,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4386026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fitzsimmonsshield/pseuds/fitzsimmonsshield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are each looking for a missing person. Jemma Simmons is gone. The Winter Soldier has disappeared. Leo Fitz and Natasha Romanov are two different people experiencing very similar things. Where are the people they are looking for and what will the fallout mean for the Avengers and the Agents of SHIELD?</p>
<p>*** SPOILER WARNING: Includes the post-credit Ant-Man scene.***</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Can't Find My Mind

“H-hello?” her small voice echoed, resounding off imaginary walls. She then wondered if they were imaginary. In fact, she wasn’t sure where she was at all for that matter. She could see a figure, crumbled up in the middle of a room some way away.

The room had the feeling that it was familiar, déjà vu, as you would call if you had a clear space of mind. However that was very far from the present case for Jemma Simmons.

Someone was most certainly there. It was unclear if the man could see or hear her like she could she him. She felt herself moving towards him. But she didn’t really feel like she had a body. She could take the moment to ponder what was going on, or she could keep moving towards the enigmatic figure.

“Zdravstvuyte?” The man lifted his own head as she arrived closer; the voice was heightened with alert, but also weighted down with weakness. He looked at her, but then looked through her.

“Hello? Hello!” She called frantically. In a corporeal sense she would be flailing her limbs trying to get his attention. She wasn’t sure if she had limbs to flail at the moment.

“Hello?” he responded, in English this time. No Russian accent in the pronunciation. 

“Can you hear me?” she said exasperated. All this time she had been feeling like a ghost. She was so close to him now, probably just feet away. The room was rather larger, and a big rusty machine was in the middle. The man lay against it, he looked rather weary.

“I was alone for what seemed like a long time, and then I appeared… here…” she said, taking in as much of the surrounding as she could. He looked at her, but it was blank.

“Y-you’re not much for words…” when she got nervous she tended to over speak. 

On further observation, the man before her was in pretty bad shape. He was covered in dirt and his clothes tattered. There was a wound on the side of his face, and the bruising around it suggested that it might have been self-inflicted. Her eyes traced up the arm he had slung around the old metal machine, to which answered her most puzzling question of who was he. At the tip of the arm jutted a shiny metal hand, pressed between two plates of the giant machine. The pressure bearing down on his hand rendered him stuck. Or on second thought maybe he was captive.

“You’re the Soldier,” Jemma’s voice fell into astonishment.

 

Back at the Playground, things were not going any better. Fitz sat in the lab, going over nanosecond by nanosecond the video feed of when the mysterious rock swallowed up Jemma. Coulson, under the direction of Mack, forbade anyone from entering the room, and so Fitz was only allowed to run diagnostics and tests via remote robotics. It frustrated him. There was nothing he knew how to do to address this, and he thought the only person who would be able to figure this out would be the very person the rock had sucked up.

May had taken a Quinjet with Skye and Lincoln to track down a couple of neutral Inhumans Lincoln knew about. It was to help find answers about what they could be dealing with. As far as Lincoln knew, Jiaying had been the oldest Inhuman, and now she was gone. Mack offered his support to Fitz, in both brain and brawn. He was a good partner to springboard ideas off of, but Mack had limited knowledge, and besides, Coulson had allocated Mack’s resources to build a bigger and better Bus. 

Hunter sat bedside vigil at Bobbi’s bed. Bobbi was, okay, in a sense. She was shaken by the tortures she endured and was coming to face the knowledge that her leg would never be the same. Coulson brought over a team of scientists who worked on repairing Deathlok to create a semi exo-skeleton leg for Bobbi, as well as a new hand for him. Coulson was going to have to pull his team up, and it wasn’t going to be easy.

Fitz spent the days after Jemma’s disappearance scrawling dead-end ideas down. He even resorted to picking up Norse mythology books after thinking about the rock as a Bifrost. At Fitz’ request, Coulson sent out messages to Dr. Jane Foster and Selvig. While the rock was not Asgardian, they may have insight onto how portals to other realms could work, and how to unlock them. Fitz was desperate. 

There was no time for his mind to malfunction. He stuttered and stammered through sentences but continued on. Jemma wasn’t there, she wasn’t even an imagination. Fitz would not let the thought of her being dead infect his brain. He knew if he thought that he could not surge on. For all he knew, she could be in a far off realm.

Or maybe, just maybe she was a littler closer.


	2. Trouble Will Find Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha is on a chase she can't keep hidden for very much longer. Hunter tries something new to help Fitz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More story framework. Let me know what ya think :)

Steve was beginning to think something was up. He knew Natasha very well by now, or as well as she would let anyone know her. He supposed Natasha’s downward spiral was due to Dr. Banner’s disappearance. Talking with Sam in between training sessions they tried to come up with ways to cheer her up. The only thing that seemed to lighten her mood was went Clint Skyped with her or if she flew down to his ranch for the day. At training sessions she had been less cooperative. She’d get easily pissed when the New Avengers failed to work together to complete an objective. She’d go off and do it herself and retreat back to her quarters without so much a word.

But while Steve pandered on the thoughts of Natasha’s current presence being driven by Dr. Banner, Natasha was actually concerned over something more pressing.

The trips to Clint’s farm had been a ruse. Natasha wasn’t flying to visit Clint and his family even though she wanted to. She would call up Clint, tell him she needed a cover, and Clint would happily oblige.

“Nat, you better not be up to anything I would disapprove of,” he said on the phone the first time.

“Trust me, Clint, it’s the most important thing I have to be doing right now,” she said back.

“Are you looking for Bruce… you can tell me, Nat,” he responded.

Natasha sighed, she wasn’t going to answer that. Clint figured he hit a wrong chord.

“Ah, forget that I said that. I trust you like the day I met you,” Clint laughed off. Nathaniel could be heard beginning to cry in the background.

“Well, looks like you have your hands full, will you do me this solid, Clint?” Natasha asked one last time.

“Anything for you Nat, just be safe, but do come visit some time,” Clint’s voice became strained; Natasha figured he was picking up the baby. She ended the phone call.

That’s how Natasha got her cover. Clint would feed her things to say about his family for when she arrived back at the Avengers facility. Instead, Natasha would take a jet and visit a place halfway around the world for just a few hours. But she knew she was running out of time and couldn’t keep this up for very much longer. She knew Steve was too smart to believe her charade. And then what? The possibilities kept her up at night.

Fitz, too, couldn’t get a decent night of sleep in the days of Jemma’s disappearance. By the end of the first week he had spent such little time resting, his shaking and stuttering were at levels that mirrored once he regained consciousness after the bottom of the ocean incident. It was May, who had come back from her vacation early after hearing about Jemma that suggested Fitz try something to get some sleep. She tried to lead him through meditation, but he wasn’t able to focus and ended up getting even more frustrated.

May let it slip in a meeting with the rest of the team her efforts to help Fitz. Everyone was concerned, naturally, but no one could muster up any ideas to help Fitz calm down. It was hard to watch him struggle so much, again.

Hunter did have an idea. Bobbi didn’t take her sleep medication because she didn’t need it, so there was a whole pill bottle filled with sleeping pills just lying there. He wasn’t sure he could convince Fitz to take one, so in true Hunter fashion, he slipped it to Fitz in a cup of tea. Hunter stuck around to help Fitz to bed and happily announced to the team that Fitz had finally hit the sack. But Hunter should't have celebrated so early.

One of the reasons Fitz had been avoiding sleep, was his fear of Imaginary Jemma appearing. That’s where she first started, but she had manifested out of his dreams in a Tyler Durden/Fight Club-esque way. He figured the less he slept this time around, she wouldn’t return.

But Jemma did. And Fitz couldn't wake up.


	3. Stockholm Syndrome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We delve into some more of the Winter Widow plot. But like Agents of Shield, it's all connected. ooOOOoooOoOOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chiseling out some of the story now rather then just framing the setting. I did lay down some major plot points, let's see if you can find them!

There she was, standing in the middle of a dirty old room. She was looking down at something. Someone. Before the words could get out of his mouth, there was a noise, somewhere far off in this building. Jemma looked up, startled. She blurted out she had to go, and just as she had been standing there- clear in Fitz’ eyes, she was gone. The figure she had been talking to lifted his head confused at her disappearance. Fitz could hear quiet footsteps coming. And then he wasn’t even there anymore. Fitz was whisked away to the quiet stillness of deep sleep.

Fitz didn’t have a chance to see who was entering the room, but just a moment after he disappeared, Natasha entered.

“Hey, buddy,” she said with a hint of cheeriness, carrying in a couple of duffel bags. She set them down aside the Soldier. He looked up to her, a brightness entering the whites of his eyes.

“Someone was here,” he spoke back to her, slowly and softly.

Natasha was touching something on the machine. She stopped immediately, and crouched in front of him, intensity radiating from every pore of her body. This is what she feared.

“Who?” 

Natasha’s curt voice echoed through the abandoned building, rattling the dust piled up in the corners.

“A girl, a British girl,” he answered disjointedly. He had a way of calculating his words. Natasha chalked this up as a defense mechanism ingrained into him. It made him seem innocent, childlike in a sense. 

“What was she doing here,” she resumed her fiddling of the machine. Natasha wasn’t going to discount this mystery girl as a threat just yet, but she had been mining away at Bucky’s exterior for weeks now that she could trust his judgment. 

“She appeared and disappeared like a ghost,” his voice was beginning to wane; his mind was becoming clouded over with his struggle to grapple who he was and who he was not. Natasha knew she couldn’t keep tugging on this thread for too much longer. 

“I’m sorry I took so long to come back, it’s sometimes hard to slip out under everyone’s noses,” Natasha spoke to him gently. There was a loud clanging noise and a sigh of relief from the Soldier. His metal arm slipped out of the press and he was given back free motion. 

Natasha kneeled in front of him again and began unloading one of the duffel bags. She had brought food and fresh clothing. 

“The little girl said you were very polite to her yesterday,” Natasha said. She was talking about the girl she paid to visit him and bring him supplies. She was the daughter of a refugee woman Natasha once helped a few years ago. Natasha felt something special with the girl and kept in touch with the family. The Soldier stretched out his back. His body was so trained to staying still from long periods of time in uncomfortable positions he didn’t feel any pain from sitting all day. 

Natasha spread out the meal on a picnic blanket. Before flying off to his location she usually stopped in Brooklyn to pick up a few staple Brooklynite foods. She knew food and smell and taste were all connected to memories. It’s why she avoided borscht and lapsha, and made sure he avoided it too.

The Soldier reached first for the pizza, still warm from the container Natasha had packed it in. He forewent the plate and held it, folded, in his metal hand, tearing away at the end like any true New Yorker. Natasha monitored his diet most of the week. The girl would bring him very simple, but nutritional meals. Eggs, yogurt, lean proteins, high fiber vegetables. He wasn’t very active here and Natasha needed to help keep his body in pristine condition. He wasn’t ready to be out in the world in this state. He asked for this.

It was only a week after the collapse of SHIELD and the demolition of the Triskelion, the Soldier sought out Natasha. She was actually kind of expecting it to happen, which is why she fed Steve false information. It would satisfy him for a bit and put him on a lukewarm trip through Eastern Europe. His signals to her were as subtle as smoke stacks in a skyline. Natasha first started seeing red stars in her neighborhood. It wasn’t a coincidence. They were scrawled on trash cans, sidewalks and poles. She just had to crack his method and see where it led her. It didn’t take long. She knew his tricks. He was holed up in a vacant office building. He had pooled together things he had stolen in order to survive. A makeshift home for what she would call a makeshift life. 

“Natasha,” he called out to her when she found his dwelling. He wasn’t going to do the whole mysterious appear from shadows. He has been vulnerable, there was no need to add suspicion and mystery to the surrounding. 

“I knew you would remember me,” Natasha smirked. Her arm was in a sling still; she wouldn’t have come with such an obvious injury to a dangerous man if she didn’t feel safe.

“The second bullet, I’ve put in you,” he said, gazing at her arm.

“Technically third, but I don’t think you remember that yet,” she corrected.

He looked startled for a moment. 

“How did you know I wouldn’t hurt you now?” he asked. This was the most rounded conversation she would have with him to date. 

“On the freeway you hunted me instead of Steve Rogers,” she smirked.

The name caused a disillusioned look for a moment. He remained silent, lost in thought he couldn’t quite connect to. 

“You remembered me?” Natasha stated.

“I remembered you.”


	4. Misguided Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz wakes up and recounts some details about Jemma's whereabouts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went to the library to try and write and do some work and ended up forgetting my headphones at home, which made for a very unproductive afternoon, hence the short chapter.

It was late morning when Fitz finally wrestled himself out of the deep sleep. His skin was encased in sweat while his chest pumping air furiously to try and grasp air. He stumbled out of bed in a half-daze, tripping over the bed sheets. He reached his bunk’s door and hung onto the frame, stopping to huff and wheeze. Putting it aside he booked it down the hallway, his feet tripping with numbness. He needed to find someone and tell him what he saw.

He first came upon Coulson. Coulson was hard pressed for sleep as well, often consumed reviewing blueprints, setting up his little project Caterpillars, and now searching for Jemma. His missing hand was at the back of his mind. Coulson lifted his head when Fitz bolted in his office. He remained composed, his redeeming quality.

“S-sir,” Fitz spat out, his voice shaking.

“You alright, Fitz? What happened?” Coulson had extensive training in maintaining his cool during escalating moments.

Fitz stuttered out Jemma’s name. Coulson thought at first Jemma had somehow returned, maybe regurgitated by the alien rock, but the expression on Fitz’ face told a different story. Coulson coaxed Fitz to sit down, and pulled a cup of water for him to quiet the anxiety. He gave Fitz a few minutes, so his breath could die down and his mind could think rationally again.

“What about Simmons?” Coulson finally asked.

“I saw her, in my dream,” Fitz’ words stumbled out. Coulson frowned, it was like he was at Day One again, talking about seeing Jemma when she isn’t there, hallucinations, nightmares, he wasn’t sure if he could provide proper care for Fitz as an Agent with these severe traumatic episodes.

“You haven’t been getting any sleep Fitz, she’s consumed your mind, she will appear in your sub-conscious from time to time, but we do need to work together on helping you manage this,” Coulson said. 

“No no no, you don’t understand,” Fitz retorted, feeling like Coulson was Snape trying to teach him Occlumency. He couldn’t shut her out of his mind. The thought was growing, but Fitz had an inkling that he needed to expand it.

“Try and explain it to me then,” Coulson was patient.

“I think she’s trapped in a parallel universe, like the guy form the factory was. When she was talking she talked about how she didn’t know where she was or how she got there and she sounded scared, Sir. I think she was able to connect with me and that’s why I could see her. There’s a branch of fringe science called Noetics that theorizes this… Simmons had blabbed on about it one time and I only caught the footnotes of what she was saying…,” it was a lot of words for Fitz to work through, and while it came out garbled, Coulson could grasp what he was saying.

Coulson reclined in his own chair, letting silence manifest thoughts. Fitz’ breathing had picked up again during his explanation, but it was falling again.

“Do you think this is something we should pursue?” Coulson said after some time.

Fitz nodded. He would nod to anything that was in efforts to get Jemma back. He longed to return to sleep, to see her again. But his mind was awake and racing, and he knew sleep wouldn’t come for a very long time again. 

“Fitz, I’ll make some calls and get a team together of neuro scientists and find the top names in the Noetics field you speak about. For now, we’ll get you some breakfast and you can write down the details about what you saw,” Coulson lifted from his chair. In reaction, Fitz followed in suit. He was groggy from the sleep and with such a torrent of energy upon waking up he felt nauseous.


	5. A Modern Myth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson becomes worried about another pressing matter. Jemma Simmons' family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loving the kudos. Thanks everyone =]

There was no ignoring the calls now, happening frequently despite the time difference. First it was Jemma’s private phone that had begun ringing off the hook, or rather vibrating so fervently it shook itself off her dresser. It rang until the battery had been eaten up. The next phone to start ringing was an old SHIELD operator’s line that each SHIELD member had been given to use as an emergency contact number. In a nod to Peggy Carter’s hand at launching SHIELD, the number was a cover of a fake phone company.

Before SHIELD formerly collapsed, the line was manned by a full-fledged team of operators who were trained on handling all sorts of calls. In the wake of the fall of SHIELD, the number became overly used after family members began calling over the concerns they hadn’t heard from their member in awhile and had this number. The people calling were family members of those who fell during the Triskelion or Hydra members being picked off subsequently. Fury had directed Coulson to keep the line open but change how things were handled there. It didn’t ring so much as it had during the collapse of SHIELD. But now the line was ringing non-stop due to the concern of the Simmons family.

Coulson knew he had to pick up the phone sometime and couldn’t keep side-stepping the call. He just hadn’t come up with what to tell her family. He remembered when he almost had to call them when Jemma was afflicted with the alien virus. Coulson sat in his office after helping Fitz get some breakfast and calm down. He toyed around with different scenarios and then phoned May to get her input on which one may be the best to go with.

“It’s difficult because we don’t know if she’s alive or dead or if we will ever get her back… and if we were to get her back, what kind of state could she be in? I can’t just say she’s been involved in a lab accident because they’d want to see her in a hospital bed at least. And if I tell them she’s dead, I could be entirely wrong and cause her family that damage. You know how powerful her family is. Heck, they’ve probably hired private detectives to try and find out who she really works for,” Coulson mused to May.

May listened earnestly. When a SHIELD member joins, these circumstances are all talked about, but Jemma’s case was different from the usual structure set up.

“It’s best to go with a missing in action story. Did Jemma tell you before her disappearance what she had been telling her family? She always kept in good contact with them,” May said. She was flying the Quinjet. Skye was listening to the call, seated next to May, learning the controls.

Skye was intrigued; Jemma hadn’t talked about her family despite being in constant contact with them.

“I’ll give them the call then,” Coulson said, ending the call. He leaned back in his chair, tapping his office’s phone with the fingers on his good hand. His gaze was wistful, building up to the difficult conversation he was about to have.

Coulson punched in the numbers to Jemma’s family, and delivered the news. Of course, Jemma’s family was livid. They demanded to speak to him in person, immediately, whether it be stateside or in England. Coulson, who had told her family his name was John Pineda accepted, and called May directly after to pick him up to meet with her family.

The story had been briefly concocted. Jemma’s cover had been she was working with Doctors Without Borders, which explained her being hard to reach and traveling so much. They knew she had graduated the SHIELD Academy, but were under the impression she had turned down a job from them. Coulson had told her family there had been a plane accident, his missing hand would attest to surviving it, but they did not find Jemma’s body and had search teams scanning the dense jungle’s of Costa Rica for her. 

May was at the base within hours, Skye had worked on creating a profile and biographical information on Jemma with Doctors Without Borders. Coulson had convinced Fitz to come on the trip, her family knew him, and he would be the selling point. 

“But, Sir, I don’t think I could face them,” Fitz looked a bit blue in the face with nerves. 

“There were a lot of things you said you couldn’t do after your accident, and you did them all without realizing it. We need to make sure Jemma’s family doesn’t get too suspicious,” Coulson was sitting across from him on the jet. Skye was applying cuts to Coulson’s face and arms, and bruising to his head and eye. He had to look like he was in a plane crash. Fitz’ cover would be different, as would Skye and May’s. Coulson was to be the project manager, while the rest had already been at the camp. May was the group’s Spanish translator, Fitz designed and engineered modern medical devices for locals in impoverished areas, and Skye was the community outreach. During the ride over to England, they fleshed out an entire story. 

While Fitz cooperated, his fear remained. Skye confronted him about it.


	6. Tahitian Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha has ideas and dodges bullets. But what happens when worlds start to converge?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm excited for when I will be taking you.

Natasha set the plane on autopilot, back to the Avengers facility. She reclined the cockpit seat to rest, but stared blankly at the ceiling of the aircraft. How long would this arrangement continue on, she did not know. But it would have to end eventually, and the truth, so hidden, would be dredged up from its depths. She didn’t feel quite comfortable if the people around her knew the truth. And those who were closest to her may rethink their choices.

She had been deceptive her whole life, what was one more secret upon dozens of them. She thought about Clint and his family, a secret that wasn’t big enough to divide the Avengers and in fact one that expanded them. She didn’t give up on him when he was under mind control because she knew it wasn’t permanent. Just like Bucky’s. It could be changed. 

Staring at the blinking lights and buttons on the ceiling, Natasha had a bit of a revelation. Bucky’s memory wasn’t clicking back. He couldn’t recall his first life, but he was able to recall things that have happened to him as the Soldier. He deserved to have his life back, and up until now Natasha hadn’t had a clue.

She thought about Clint and when Loki controlled his mind. She thought about Wanda and how she could project people’s mind. She thought about Vision’s stone. 

And then she thought about Loki’s scepter. It was powerful, and it may just hold the key to helping Bucky, the Soldier. It was awkward for her to call him Bucky. It wasn’t the name she knew him by. The scepter, or at least the stone it possessed, would be hard to get, if possible at all. She would need someone very intelligent on her side to help concoct a solution. But who was she to trust? They’d have to trust her first.

She knew where it was, but just not how to get to it. And get to it without making a scene. It had been months since she took the Soldier in. In that office building he surrendered himself over to her. He begged her to keep everyone safe from him. He didn’t want to be dangerous anymore. That’s why he was stuck in an abandoned building, with his metal arm pinned down. Where a girl would come and bring him supplies and talk about flowers and what she learned in school. 

Natasha, content with her idea for now, adjusted a bracelet on her wrist, tightening it. The pressure always helped her sleep, reminding her of her past. Hundreds of Widows before her had done it, and she was sure that those who had survived still did it. She lifted her arm above her head, closed her eyes, and dreamed of ballet.

Natasha woke when autopilot alerted her to near landing time. She stretched, loosened the bracelet and rubbed out the mark it left on her wrist and regained controls of the jet. She landed the jet in the hangar, grabbed her bag, and headed for her quarters in the facility. 

Steve was waiting for her outside the door. His head bowed, a leg bent as his foot rested against the wall, he was quiet in thought. 

“Hey,” Natasha called down the hallway. She figured the less time she had to spend with Steve outside of training was better for her personal mission.

“Hey, Nat, I knew you’d be back soon. I have to talk to you about something,” he replied, straightening up. He was learning her pattern of coming and going.

“What’s up?” Natasha was alarmed but acted coy about the feeling.

“I learned something new today, something rather exciting,” he was pleased with himself. He picked up a folder that had been lying at his feet. 

Natasha unlocked the door to her quarters and waved for Steve to follow her in. 

“A couple of weeks ago while we were running drills with the new guys, I was thinking of the Battle of New York. We didn’t really come together as a team until Coulson died, and I was trying to figure out how I could instill that unity with the new guys. I got to digging through some of the documents you dumped on the Internet. This one in particular has potentially amazing news. It talks about a project- called Tahiti, I think? Coulson’s name is attached to it at every turn, and mentions him even after he died, as if he wasn’t. It doesn’t give much detail on the project itself, but it talks about inspiration from the Widow project, so I thought you might know about it. It’s strange. Would you be able to take a read through these? It sounds to me as if Coulson isn’t dead. I know you don’t like talking about your pre-SHIELD days, but I was wondering if you could add anything that may help me find Coulson,” Steve was flipping through the pages, eagerly. 

Natasha mentally sighed in relief. 

“I’ve heard of rumors of this project,” Natasha confirmed to Steve, Actually, she knew a bit more then rumors. She knew what the T.A.H.I.T.I project did and knew Coulson wanted it shut down. It wasn’t surprising to her now that Fury had probably overridden Coulson on that judgment and even put him through it.

“Yeah? Do you think Fury kept this from us?” Steve placed the folder on her desk.

“Fury delegates information as he sees fit. He must see an advantage to keeping the events of the T.A.H.I.T.I program a secret,” Natasha stated. She threw her duffel bag on an armchair, and closed the shades in her office.

“Well, you were part of the Widow program right, anything they did there that could give context to the Tahiti one?” Steve probed, he stretched out on a free armchair. 

Natasha gave him an offended glance. She wanted to steer him very clear of probing into the Widow program in any sense.

“Probably to deal with hardwiring the brain. I don’t like talking about that Rogers. I’d focus more on finding Coulson. Fury’s ears will be ringing and he will know you’re interested,” Natasha crossed her arms and stood in front of Steve.

“I just don’t understand it. We went to Coulson’s funeral. Why would Fury not tell us after we got Loki?” Steve ran his fingers through his hair.

“Same reason Fury faked his death, perhaps. You can believe in an idea all you want, but it doesn’t have power until you enact on it, perhaps he has Coulson managing things in the background. SHIELD has been rebuilding, right? Fury died and hasn’t called himself director since coming back,” Natasha was getting interested in Steve’s theory now.

“I want to speak with him,” Steve said bluntly.

“I’ll call him in,” Natasha said, walking over to her desk. She phoned over Fury to come immediately. She baited him with the fact that maybe she had found something on Banner. Fury was in her office in less then five minutes. Once seeing Natasha and Steve, both with their arms crossed, Fury knew this may not be the conversation he was expecting.

“I don’t suppose I can exit this room like nothing happened,” Fury stated. 

“That’s up to you, Fury,” Steve said nonchalantly. 

“We’ll ask it very straightforward. Where is Coulson?” Natasha picked up.

Fury sighed. He wondered what it must take to keep a goddamn secret nowadays. He remained silent.

“Not six feet under?” Steve poked.  
“Not six feet under,” Fury confirmed.

“I’ll prep my Quinjet, Fury input the coordinates,” Natasha picked up her duffel bag again and led the way out of her quarters.


	7. Words in the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson and the team meet Jemma's family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've been naming the chapters after song, whether it be the title or something in the lyrics. This chapter is named after Words in the Fire by Patrick Watson.
> 
> P.S - if you haven't caught on, I don't write English accents, so use your imagination =D

Once they made it down to the luggage carousels, Coulson spotted a well-dressed man holding a tablet with the named Pineda written on it. The last time Fitz had been in London was when they were cleaning up after Thor’s mess at Greenwich University. Jemma had told her parents she was in town to administer her services to bystanders her in the attack, but her parents relentlessly called her trying to find out more about it. Jemma skipped around talking to them, but she did end up meeting them for lunch to show she was alive and well.

“I take it you’re from the Simmons family?” Coulson said to the man. 

“Mr. Pineda,” the man addressed Coulson. He beckoned Coulson and the team to follow him outside Heathrow where a limousine was waiting for them.

“Oh! Rolling big in London, Simmons had been holding out on us!” Skye exclaimed to Fitz. Fitz looked a bit sick at the sight of it. The chauffeur helped load their carry-on bags into the limousine and held the door open.

“The Simmons family invites you to enjoy the amenities presented here, if you need anything else please communicate with me from the console, we will arrive at our destination at about a quarter to 3,” the chauffeur said before shutting the door and wheeling around to the driver’s seat.

“So, it never really occurred for me to ask, but who are Simmons’ family?” Skye was helping herself to a glass of champagne. She tipped the bottle to Coulson, May and Fitz, who each declined.

“Her family come from a long line of lords and ladies, distantly related to Buckingham, so they’ve always had money. In the Industrial revolution they capitalized on their name and joined the steel industry. Ever since then they’ve been one of England’s most profitable companies,” Coulson said.

“Yeah and they are not too keen on the apparent dangers of her job,” Fitz mumbled, in his mind he was thinking about the Chitauri virus. 

It was a mostly quiet ride; Coulson had urged the team back on the Quinjet to remain solemn, which wasn’t hard to do given that Jemma was actually missing. Skye spent most of the ride sipping on the champagne and enjoying some hors d’ouerves while watching the scenery change from city to suburb, to sprawling countryside.   
It wasn’t long before the limousine turned down a quiet road, with barely anything in sight. Several minutes later, the limousine made a turn, but into the long gated driveway of the Simmons’ estate. 

“Holy cow,” Skye exclaimed. “This is like freaking Versailles!” 

“This is nothing, Skye, English manors have long front yards, as you would say in the states, the backyard is the gardens,” Fitz looked like he was sweating a bit.

The limousine pulled up to the front of the mansion, where staff was waiting. They helped unload the limousine and usher the group inside. Skye had to bit her tongue at how stately and regal everything was. The whole time she was imagining Simmons’ growing up here, her bubbliness did not look like it fit in with the coldness of the décor.

“You will be having tea with Lord and Lady Simmons in the gardens to discuss Ms. Simmons,” a stern woman said to them. She led the way through the manor to outside, where it really was sprawling as Fitz had mentioned. There were statues in the gardens, and stables on the top of a hill. Gardeners trimmed hedges and added manure to flower beds. 

The group was led to a patio that surrounded a fountain. What looked like a hedge maze was beyond it.

“This place is intense,” Skye commented. A long table was set up splendidly, with cakes and other finger foods. There was an intricately detailed tea set in the middle. At one side of the table, sitting under an umbrella was the stately-looking Lord and Lady Simmons.

After greetings, the Simmons’ hocked the good manners and began prattling off questions about Jemma. Jemma’s mother, who Jemma looked very much like except for the hair and the height, had looked very distraught. Between every other word she let out a sob. Jemma’s father on the other hand was a large man, who shared the same hazelnut hair as Jemma.

“Mr. Fitz, you’ve known Jemma since you went to that academy together,” there was a break in Lady Simmons’ voice for her to stifle a cry. “A-And you followed her when she wanted to join the Doctors program, which we advised against on numerous occasions, especially after she herself got sick. Why didn’t she listen to us?” 

Fitz disliked Jemma’s parents. The very first time he met them they looked him up and down and upturned their noses. Jemma tried to slide this off but knew her parents cared about their status and social circles far too much.

Jemma’s father took up speaking instead, realizing his wife was much too fragile in disposition to carry on the conversation.  
“Jemma was our only daughter, the heir of our company. Is there anything we can do to aid in recovering her to give her a proper burial?” There was no emotion in his voice. He sounded all business, more perturbed by the fact that he now had no heir to leave his company to after he passed.

“At this moment, no, Sir. We have all available search and rescue teams scouring for her. The search is delayed every so often due to weather conditions and negotiations with local tribes,” Coulson, as Mr. Pineda, explained.

“How did this plane crash occur?” Her father queried. 

“We were transporting her, along with several other of us from one remote location to another. The plane began breaking apart due to what the black box has recorded as an engine malfunction. Jemma had been sitting next to the door of the plane, and as the cabin pressure dropped, we lost her when the door gave out…” Coulson explained.

Simmons’ mother wailed and reached for a handkerchief. Her husband set a large hand on top of his wife’s. An attendant filled up her cup with tea, and poured for everyone else.

“Is there any chance she could have survived?” her father added.

“A slim one, but we’re confident with the training she has received, including her own medical training that if she did survive the crash, she may be able to survive. You learn many survival tactics when working in these kinds of locations, and your daughter was one of the best. We have acquired the use of several drones to scan the forests as well, if Jemma survived she would know to send up signals and to find shelter,” Coulson was always calm, but there was an added tone of sadness to his voice.

Everyone took a sip of his or her tea. Her mother gently sobbed. It was a difficult moment for everyone at the table.

“We will arrange a memorial service… for Jemma, we should be able to clear our schedule this weekend to host it, here, at the estate. Are you able to stay until then?” Jemma’s father asked. All business.

“Unfortunately, we have a flight back to South America to rejoin the search efforts and finish our work in Costa Rica,” this time May spoke up. 

“We offer our utmost condolences to you, we know how wonderful a woman she was,” Coulson added.

That sentence was just too much for Fitz to bear, and he let the tears that had been tugging at his eyelids race down his cheeks.


	8. Trying to Escape the Inevitable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secrets begin to spill out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title inspired by the song Trying to Escape the Inevitable by Pencey Prep. I didn't want to write such a dialogue heavy chapter but it was the only way to dish out some vital info and keep the story progressing.

When Coulson, May, Skye and Fitz returned to the Playground, Hunter greeted them right off the bat, speaking superfluously fast and wildly.

“Coulson, you have visitors and they’re very important people, very important. They went to chat with Bob so if you want to head there -,” Hunter prattled on. Mack and Lincoln followed up behind Hunter, Mack was cleaning out a car part with a rag. Mack turned up only because he knew things were about to get very interesting.

Coulson, trailed by everyone, winded down the halls to the medical bay. He walked into Bobbi’s private room, where Natasha was seated next to her bed engaged in a private conversation. Natasha was swiping through pictures on her phone, a baby. Steve glared at Fury from across the room, and Fury sat reading a magazine close to the door, almost uninterested.

But once Coulson entered, the dynamics of the room changed. Natasha looked up from her bedside vigil, a look of disbelief spread across Steve’s face, and Fury… Fury turned a page in the magazine and nodded. Coulson stopped in the archway, letting everyone pool up in the hallway behind him, trying to peak around his shoulders.

“So I believe I call you Director Coulson now,” Steve mused; crossing the room to offer a handshake to the man he had last seen with a gaping chest wound.

“Sir,” Natasha said, curtly, offering up a friendly smile. She squeezed one of Bobbi’s hands and stood up from her seat, sliding her phone into a compartment on her utility belt.

After the initial greeting, Coulson had a large boardroom set up with beverages. Everyone filed in, excitement dripping in the air. Hunter even wheeled in Bobbi for the discussion. Coulson sat at the head of the table, with May and Steve at his sides, Natasha sat next to May. Fitz sat at the opposite end, focused on looking at the walls. Fury stood in the corner, pouring himself a cup of whiskey.

“Last time I saw you, you were near dead. Good to see you’re on your feet,” Fury grunted to Fitz.

“Well, it’s all thanks to you, Sir, if you hadn’t been there to get us out of the ocean I wouldn’t be so much as alive,” Fitz said.

“You invented the Micehole, didn’t you?” Fury asked.

Fitz nodded. Fury put out a hand for Fitz to shake.

“That device saved my life going up against the Winter Soldier. And you know what else, it saved Natasha and Steve’s,” Fury said as Fitz slowly took it.

“W-well thank you, Sir,” Fitz said astonished.

“What about the science girl? Named after a rock or something?” Fury was quick to switch topics. He meant Jemma.

However, Coulson caught wind of the conversation between Fury and Fitz.

“That’s something I’d like to discuss with you, Fury. And well, you two as well,” Coulson piped up, and looked at Steve and Natasha. His voice cleared the room of its ambient chatter. All eyes blinked back at him.

“Fury, as you may have known, we have been tracking down superpowered individuals as directed by the by-laws set down by the Avengers Initiative. We recognized that beings with higher powers exist and we needed a way to determine if they were safe for society or not – we’ve seen what a regular human can do with too much power, so it seemed natural to keep an eye on those who can do just a touch more,” Coulson started out, he nodded at Skye and Lincoln when he talked about people with powers.

“We discovered humans who are gifted due to an alien race that had visited Earth thousands of years ago. Two of those humans are here with us, Skye and Lincoln. We’ve just begun learning about these kinds of humans with powers. More pressingly, we came into possession of an ancient alien artifact. While we know nothing about this artifact, we understand it can be very dangerous as it has taken one of our team members, Jemma Simmons. We just informed her family back in England of her disappearance. That is our most pressing matter. Now, why are you here?” Coulson sat down as he finished.

Steve looked at Natasha and Natasha looked back at him as if to say ‘no, you go’.

“I dug up some files that mentioned Tahiti and your name, the dates set me off, occurring after the Battle of New York, I took it up to Fury who in turn brought us here. Glad to see you’re alive Coulson, but why a secret?” Steve always sounded so regal as he spoke.

Natasha was enjoying the conversation not focusing on her. The whole alien rock thing sucking up the British girl was mystifying. 

“T.A.H.I.T.I. was a program designed that if an Avenger like yourself or Natasha were to fall, we’d be able to give them a second chance, to save them. I tried to shut down the program after the tests of it concluded there were complications, but Fury continued it and used it on me to, shall we say, revive me. Fury needed me to stay hidden so as to get things done without being seen. Remember the Helicarrier that helped you out in Sokovia? Fury likes to take credit I hear, but that was me. What have you been up to Cap?” Coulson hadn’t stopped smiling.

“I’ve been working on crafting the new Avengers, and thinking about putting together a West-coast based team,” Steve said.

“I want to introduce you to Skye and Lincoln, heading up my new secret team. If you’d give us a little demonstration of your abilities,” Coulson pointed them out.

Skye asked everyone to let go of his or her water glasses and promptly showed off the little party trick her mom had helped teach her. Lincoln, not liking being put on the spot with people he had just met, gave Skye a small static shock, enough to completely blow out her hair, prompting a light laughter throughout the room and a very disgruntled Skye. 

“They’re working out some things,” Coulson noted.

“So, Coulson, this alien rock, can we see it?” Natasha asked. Coulson frowned at her.

“We have the room sectioned off for testing. We’ve been contacting different kinds of scientists in the meantime to get their opinions. Fitz had a very interesting idea that the artifact may be some kind of teleporter, bringing Jemma to a different plain of the universe, or, you know, an alternate one. He thinks he may have seen her while dreaming, she was speaking to someone and then she disappeared again when disrupted. Interesting you should ask about locating missing people, any headway on Dr. Banner or the Winter Soldier?” Coulson said,

“Dead on both ends,” Fury grunted from the corner. Steve gave Fury a side-eye.

“Well, we don’t really have anything else to talk about, then, care for a tour of the Playground, I’m not sure Hunter gave you a thorough one,” Coulson stood up again and Steve joined his side, they began to walk out together with the rest following suit.

“You know, the Playground was one of the first offices set up by Peggy…” Coulson’s voice could be heard telling Steve, trailing off about facts.

Natasha took her time getting out of her seat, she hung back to position herself next to Fitz.

“Can I see the room?” she asked him quietly.

“That’s not a good idea, it’s Coulson’s orders not to go in there, I’m only allowed to send Dwarves – miniature drones – into it,” Fitz spoke with a jitter, being in Natasha’s presence was nerve-wracking. Fury walked past them, giving Natasha a slightly disapproving look at her request to Fitz.

“I’ve been around a fair share of alien technology, and even used it. I may be able to help find the missing scientist. What do we know about these aliens, I can always place a call to Asgard -,” Natasha had to give Fitz some information to gain his trust. 

“It belongs to a race of aliens called the Kree. They tried to destroy Earth or something. The best I can do is show you footage of the rock, but I do not have clearance for that room,” Fitz grumbled.

“That could work, Coulson said you had a dream about what it was. I know how powerful some dreams can be – especially if they come from a Witch – what did you see or hear?” Natasha had to slow down her pace to allow Fitz to lead. They were walking a part from the group now, towards the labs.

“I think the rock connects somewhere else, and maybe the other side it connects to is damaged, not open, or doesn’t exist. Like a phone calling a number that isn’t hooked up. But – as the footage shows – the rock has some kind of property making me question whether it possesses intelligence or is programmed that way. It literally consumes her…,” Fitz shuddered at the words.

Natasha backed off from probing about it. 

“So the scientist, where did you see her, what was she doing?” Natasha followed Fitz into the lab. He pulled over a chair for her by his computer and logged into the surveillance footage. The video of Fitz leaving the room and then moments later Jemma being swallowed was already open. Fitz watched it countless times, went frame by frame. It made him sick to his stomach to watch over and over again. 

Natasha watched it intently, intrigued. Fitz rubbed his hands over his face warily. 

“The container the rock is in, is it locked?” Natasha asked at the end.

“It was supposed to be,” he chimed.

“How was it open, did someone intentionally unlock it? Could you pull up a previous video maybe? You don’t have to do that now. Do you have a picture of her, and I’d like a copy of the video and if you have clear pictures of the rock, I’d like to set up a task force at the Avengers facility to help you.” Natasha spoke. 

Fitz nodded, and began putting together a file for Natasha.


	9. Science/Vision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma's universe explained a bit more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title inspired by Science/Vision - CHVRCHES

Jemma felt that she was never in one place for too long. She’d visit the captive man every so often, but with no concept of time and no frame of mind to ask about the time gaps, her interactions were brief and short. When she was visiting the man he always looked the same. She was constantly moving, but not sure where she was going or even how. Sometimes she’d end up in the middle of a forest-like area and other times she was in a sand-colored maze. She never got far in it before she was removed. Most of the time she felt she was somewhere that was very hard, as if she was encased in something solid. It wasn’t complete darkness either. A dark but glowing blue shrouded her surroundings. 

While Jemma couldn’t grasp it, she did visit the Soldier a few times a day over the course of the next week. Her visits were short and always came as a surprise. She had no way of knowing how much time passed between these visitations.

At one point, things began to change for Jemma. She began visiting a new place, it coming closer and closer into focus each time she appeared. The visitations were brief, like a lightning strike occurring for a split second but echoing in memory for moments after.

Natasha had made the connection quite quickly. A disappearing British SHIELD scientist, the touch and go woman visiting the Winter Soldier, who, was not the same as the girl Natasha hired. Fitz spoke about traveling through different dimensions, and after witnessing Thor traveling using the BiFrost, anything was possible. Natasha was smart, and there were few people smarter than her.

The next week rolled around before one of Natasha’s scheduled visits to the Soldier. She came prepared as always with her picnic spread, Bucky, the Soldier, was as gracious as he could be to see her. As soon as she unpinned his arm he stretched out before hitting the floor to do push-ups. He thought about doing them all week.

Natasha came prepared in more ways then one. She had printed out a photo that the scientist had sent her. She would first wait until the Soldier had relaxed a bit before showing him the photo. Until then, she asked if he remembered anything new or had any good conversations with the girl who visited him every day. Same answers as always, mostly grunts and nods.

Once the Soldier settled down and began scarfing down food, Natasha fished the photo out of her bag. She looked at it, sighed, and then turned it over for the Soldier to see it. There was an immediate reaction, his eyebrows arched and he stopped chewing.

“Is she the one who comes and visits you from time to time?” Natasha spoke.

“Yes,” he responded, without hesitation.

“Her name is Jemma Simmons, she is a scientist for SHIELD, and her team thinks she’s trapped in some alternate dimension after coming into contact with an alien object,” Natasha explained.

The Soldier reached out to take the picture; he studied it in his hands.

“Can you remember all that?” Natasha said to him. He nodded.

“Good, so very good,” Natasha mused to herself. They spent the rest of the afternoon in relative silence, except for the occasional small talk led by Natasha.

Before leaving, Natasha stopped at the doorway to look at him once more. 

“I wish you would remember me like I remember you,” she said under her breath.

She turned and left, bidding him good-bye. 

Not a moment after Natasha’s departure, the scientist appeared in front of the Soldier.

“Oh, hello again!” she beamed, happy to see someone on her usual lonely trips through wherever she was.

The Soldier thought he should yell and call for Natasha, that she might be just outside. But then he also remembered how important it was to stay quiet. His mind began to flood with questions, why did she keep coming here? Where did she go? Was she dangerous?

“Simmons,” he said, the name fading fast in his mind as the questions filled up space.

“Why yes! How do you know my name?” the scientist was excited, smiling even. 

“There are people looking for you,” he enunciated slowly in his serious tone.

“Who?” Jemma remarked.

But before the Soldier answered, if he was going to answer, Jemma disappeared again.


	10. For the snakes, and the people they bite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz receives a peculiar call while Natasha's plan begins to backfire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title inspired by lyrics in Twin Size Mattress by the Front Bottoms

Fitz was now desperate for sleep. He was desperate to see her again. But the more he willed to dream, the less he was able to. His sleep was spotted, tortured, and he always woke up with a nauseating feeling. He wondered how he was able to see her so vividly before. And who the hell was she with. He wanted these answers.

The Noetic sciences met with Fitz, Coulson, and some other SHIELD scientists to discuss about noetics worked and how they might be able to will Jemma into existence To Coulson it sounded like crackpot idea, but Fitz scribbled every word down. He sketched mechanisms with the purpose of amplifying unified thoughts. Noetics was based on the very idea that a mass of people thinking or believing in the same single thought could have a real-life effect in the realm of what they were thinking about. The scientists explained it’s what made religions so powerful, and why miracles could in a sense be explained – scientifically of course.

Fitz accepted these ideas but wondered why him trying to see Simmons again in his dream only worked once. 

“There are instances we believe where it has to be a sub-conscious level of desire, Dr. Fitz. You can’t always openly wish for something to happen,” Dr. Fayruz, a square-jawed scientist from Cairo explained. His associate, Dr. Nadia Mehmud peered over her tablet.

“Perhaps revisit the circumstances of that day,” Dr. Mehmud added. 

The doctors escorted Fitz and Coulson out of their laboratory. 

As Fitz and Coulson walked to a clandestine SHIELD SUV operated by Mack, Fitz received a phone call. From Natasha.

Fitz excused himself and found a quiet unoccupied bus shelter to take the call. Coulson waited outside the SUV, leaning against it.

“Hello,” Fitz answered.

“I have good news for you,” Natasha said in her susurrus voice.

“Oh?” Fitz was rendered speechless.

“I think I know where your friend has been. I’m picking you up in a Quinjet in 2 hours, send me your coordinates,” Natasha stated.

Fitz remained silent on the line. A commuter joined him in the bus shelter, their oversized headphones pumping out audible beats.

“Don’t tell anyone where you’re going, what you’re doing. Tell Coulson I am recruiting you to help search for Dr. Banner,” Natasha continued. Fitz still remained quiet, almost frozen.

“Do you understand me?” Natasha spoke with harshness in her voice.

“Yes, yes ma’am,” Fitz sputtered out.  
“Don’t call me ma’am,” Natasha said before hanging up.

Fitz was still speechless for the moments after the call ended. He stumbled out of the bus shelter, his hands trembling over the interface of his phone to send her coordinates to where he could be. 

“Who was that?” Coulson asked like a prying father figure.

“Natasha Romanoff, Sir. She recruited me to help her search for Dr. Banner,” the words came out like he was in a dream. He stared off down the street at nothing in particular.

“You have to clear that with me,” Coulson stated, opening the passenger door for himself. Mack greeted Coulson.

“She’s picking me up in two hours, Sir,” Fitz continued, sliding into the backseat.

Coulson mulled it over in his mind for a moment.

“I can’t say no to you in trying to help the Avengers,” Coulson finally said. Coulson’s weakness exposed. He loved his Avengers (especially Cap).

“Thank you, Sir,” Fitz stated.

While Fitz had been careful and did as he told by Natasha, Natasha faced something else. Steve wasn’t going to be happy that Natasha was taking off again amidst a loaded day of training. Steve was a good leader, but his knowledge was sometimes impeded by his generation gap. He had a good sense of modern technology, but there was still so much he didn’t know, and Natasha was an expert in covert espionage. Steve made the calls for the big, tour de force plans, but Natasha taught survival, thinking on the fly and not letting your weakness be an actual weakness. She explained that one of her intelligence contacts might have seen a plane wreckage on a remote island. She wanted to check it out and see if it was helpful to Dr. Banner’s search before calling out the rest of the team.

“You’ve been tracking down leads that haven’t followed through for months now, Natasha, let me help you,” Steve was back again in her office as Natasha loaded her duffel bag.

Natasha feigned a look of hurt.

“This is important to me,” she said.

“I know, and I want to help you, Bruce is a friend. I’m sure Tony would also want to come along, he’s been scanning the world for him too,” Steve argued.

“It’s personal for me,” she simply stated.

Steve couldn’t combat with her on this anymore. He sighed, wished her luck, and exited her office. Instead of turning down the hallway to the training area, Steve u-turned to the hangars. 

If he couldn’t physically help Natasha, he could at least see where she was going. He called in for a tracking device to be delivered, and promptly placed it on the underbelly of Natasha’s Quinjet. In his mind he apologized to Natasha, he knew Natasha was guarded and closed-off in most respects, but he couldn’t bear to watch her chase down a failed promise after a failed promise.


	11. Lunacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz gets swept up in something he hadn't bargained for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lunacy by Rue Royale for chapter title inspiration

Natasha was prompt to an eerie point. As Fitz stuffed a few pairs of clothes and Icers and different gadgets that would prove useful in a missing persons case – not sure where he was going in a field bag, Natasha waited in Coulson’s office, speaking with the Director.

“Next time you’re going to borrow one of my team members, let me know first,” Coulson said to her.

Natasha traced her hands over some of the exposed etchings on Coulson’s desk. 

“I mean, I think it’ll be good for him to have his mind focused on something else for a change. It’s been three weeks since Simmons disappeared now, and he’s barely slept,” Coulson continued, he watched Natasha examine the markings.

“I need a mind who will think outside the box on this. Tony has plenty of resources dedicated to locating Banner, but he also knows him. Emotions can complicate things, and I’ve been searching for Banner for a long time now,” she didn’t looked up when she spoke. She kept her eyes down-turned as an act of solemnity. 

Not a moment later, Fitz bounded into the room, pulling the strap of his backpack over his shoulder. 

“All packed up trooper?” Natasha teased. Fitz nodded.

“Don’t keep him too long, he’s very valuable here,” Coulson lectured Natasha. She let up her serious face and let a small smile linger on her face. She led Fitz to her jet and told him to get comfortable while she prepared to take off.

Natasha didn’t speak much during the flight, and told Fitz it’s best that he was well rested. The flight didn’t last too long, but when Fitz woke up he could tell they had traveled very far.

Natasha gathered a couple bags, and motioned for Fitz to follow her, and follow closely. Fitz was nervous, but he was with one of the most capable hands in the world and that was a very pacifying thought.

They had landed just outside what looked like an old abandoned warehouse. And it was. Fitz had been under the impression that they were going to some remote tropical island, but instead they were lugging their small bits of cargo to a dilapidated looking entrance. The windows were broken and cracked, but Fitz could sense electrical currents in the air. He was fine tuned to that after spending years of conditioning. They stopped in front of the door. It was boarded up pretty well, it looked like no way in.

“Hello,” Natasha said to the door.

“What is your favorite pizza?” a robotic voice asked. Fitz jolted a bit, not expecting a security question.

“Brooklyn,” Natasha said, with a lighthearted inflection to her voice.

The door gave way at the creases. Natasha walked in confidently; Fitz could tell she had been here before.

“There’s one thing I need to tell you before going further. You need to remain calm and can’t have any exaggerated reactions. Just think like you’re tiptoeing near a sleeping bear, okay?” Natasha had stopped and came face to face with Fitz to say this.

Fitz was alarmed at this statement, but he was already here, and he promised to comply with it.

Natasha led him through a few rooms, all abandoned. He surmised this factory was an old WWII factory just by the kind of abandoned machinery. 

Natasha hesitated before entering one room. She picked up her pace on entry and began to speak.

“Yes, I’m back so soon,” she said. Her voice was light and airy, almost happy.

Fitz walked in after and took a moment to process what he was seeing. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and a sense of déjà vu, that he had seen this room before washed over him. He arched his eyebrows and opened his jaw as if to exclaim something, but shut it remembering Natasha’s words. He was going to stammer out the obvious.

“Fitz, meet Bucky, Bucky meet Fitz,” Natasha introduced. She set down her bags and walked over to the machine the Soldier’s arm was pinned by.

“H-hello,” Fitz stuttered. The Soldier said nothing, but returned with a glaring look.  
“I-I suppose this has nothing to do with Banner,” Fitz said quietly.

There was a loud clinking sound and Fitz observed as the Soldier retreated his arm out of the machine. Fitz was sure the Soldier could smell his fear. He was sure the Soldier would lash out at him in a blind murderous fury. Instead, the Soldier contorted his body into what looked like they could be yoga poses. The Soldier eyed Fitz from the corner, wary of this new stranger Natasha was bringing in.

Natasha settled down and did as she always did, set out the picnic spread. Fitz wasn’t exactly sure what he was seeing at the moment. Natasha beckoned Fitz to sit with her; he had been glued to his stop in disbelief, thinking ‘what the hell’ the entire time.

The Soldier joined her on the floor and made himself home, grabbing at different plates. 

“Sit, Fitz, we eat first, then we talk,” Natasha said with a little force in her voice. Fitz complied almost absent-mindedly. He lobbed a few things on a plate but could barely stomach them. He was sitting across from the man who had a large hand in bringing down SHIELD. He linked him to Ward’s betrayal, his disability, Simmons leaving… everything bad that had happened to him and Simmons was thrust upon the Soldier’s shoulders. It made the food, however quite delicious, difficult to swallow.

When Natasha and the Soldier had finished, the Soldier sauntered over to a corner and began pull-ups on an exposed beam. Natasha cleaned up, returning everything to the duffel bag, and chided Fitz to finish. He passed her his barely touched plate. She cocked an eyebrow at him.

From another one of her bags, she pulled out the picture of Jemma Simmons. Fitz could not see it.

“Hey Buck, can I show you her picture again?” Natasha called out to him.

He jumped down from the beam; he had done several dozen pull-ups without fatigue. The way he walked, you could tell the metal arm weighed him down. He stood next to her and peered at the picture.

“Simmons,” he said. 

The thoughts in Fitz’ head were sent spiraling. What did he know, how did he know? What was going on?

“Did you see her again?” Natasha asked the Soldier.

“After you left yesterday,” he responded quietly.  
Fitz looked mortified. He couldn’t fathom how this was even happening. Natasha let the Soldier take the picture. She turned to face Fitz.

“You see why I needed to bring you here under deep shadow?” she spoke.

“That’s the Winter Soldier!” Fitz silently exclaimed, he had been bursting to say it out loud the entire time.

“He’s safe here, I can’t explain all of that to you right now. Right now, I’m here to help you find Jemma Simmons. Bucky told me a British girl kept visiting him and then disappearing moments later.

“This is the same room I saw in the dream I had seen her in,” Fitz was wide-eyed, inspecting every nook and cranny. The déjà vu had finally been explained.

“Good, now get to work,” Natasha said.

“Do you mind if I ask him a few questions, if he remembers anything from her visits?” Fitz asked.

Natasha gave a curt nod. She reached into her bag yet again and pulled out a tablet.

“Route any of your devices on this so they are not tracked or traced,” she said, shoving it into Fitz arms. And Fitz, promptly got to work, using the Dwarves to take scans of the room to try an answer why Jemma kept ending up here, and how.


	12. It Will Come Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha hasn't covered all her tracks and it comes back to bite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S BEEN SO LONG! (I wrote that with Peggy Carter's voice in my head) - I know, I know! I got caught up with work and filling out applications and summer things. So here's a pretty lengthy chapter. It was a lot of fun to write. For me. May not be as fun for you to read.
> 
> Chapter Title from Hozier- It Will Come Back

For some time Natasha sat watching intently over Fitz’ shoulder. She was absorbing. But her proximity and unfamiliarity to Fitz left him uneasy. He had to ask her to step back a bit and not to hover. Fitz’ voice waned when he spoke to her about it, but Natasha was polite, she walked over to the corner where the Soldier was exercising. He stopped when she got close, and from the reflection on Fitz’ screen he could see Natasha whispering to him. He barely shook or nodded his head in return, but he did. And Fitz noticed.

Once Natasha was away, Fitz was able to concentrate on his work. She’d come by every so often, watch for some time, ask questions, and taper off once they were answered. She didn’t rush him. 

At first, nothing peculiar stood out in the readings Fitz was taking. He was unsure if the higher level of magnetism was due to the Soldier’s arm and the press, but the electricity in the air was up too, and not just from the equipment. He sent the Dwarves out to explore different corners of the warehouse they were in. It was going on two hours that they had been out collecting data.

Fitz was drumming away at numbers and analyses when one of the Dwarves, sent to the perimeter of the building, came back beeping. Buzzing with excitement because it meant the Dwarf had found something abnormal. An abnormal was usually a good sign in the science world that there was an answer.

“Always so trusty, Bashful,” Fitz said talking to the Dwarf.

He quickly switched over to view the data it carried. Natasha, sensing the excitement, returned to the seat next to Fitz. 

Just as Fitz accessed the data, a sound erupted from the entrance of the warehouse. Natasha shot up, incredibly alarmed. She peered towards the doorway and her body immediately took a cautionary stance.

“I have the entrance rigged so if a person gets that question wrong the first time, I’m alerted. No one should be coming through there,” she whispered to Fitz.

Fitz turned his attention to the screen.

“N-N-Natasha…, the Dwarf… it’s…,” Fitz stammered out, knowing they were in a bad position now.

But Fitz needed not to complete his statement. 

“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Natasha blurted out. She hid herself by the wall near the archway. Her chest palpitated furiously. She was exhibiting the signs of fear.

Fitz scrambled to stay hidden, but the room was empty. His mind didn’t think to even see what the Soldier was doing.

Moments later, Steve Rogers slowly entered the room from the archway. He sensed something was amiss, and just as his eye caught a man in a red shirt in the corner; Natasha reacted, throwing a quick punch to the side of the face. It was a move in hopes of knocking him out, but even she knew it would take a lot more. With Natasha’s flustered attack, Steve rebounded with surprise. At first he thought she attacked him because she didn’t know who he was, but she came at him again. Her attack was deliberate. 

“Steve!” a voice bellowed from behind Steve, it was Sam Wilson. Both of the men were suited up. He was alerting Steve to the man who first caught Steve’s attention, the Soldier.

While casting Natasha aside, Steve turned, and saw the Soldier merely leaning against a wall in a corner. 

Natasha, picking herself off the floor from where Steve batted her off, wiped blood from her jaw. Even Steve’s defensive moves hurt and she knew that from how much they trained. She ceased her attack, and stood nervously aside. Sam walked further into the room to guard her. 

Steve looked from Bucky to Natasha, slowly, and back again.

A pinch in his knees caused Fitz to shuffle, and his movement caused a slight sound. Both Steve and Sam shot looks at him, but realizing he wasn’t a threat they focused their attention back on Bucky and Natasha. Fitz, now noticed, stood up.

“I tracked you,” Steve said, turning to Natasha but keeping an eye on Bucky, who hadn’t moved.

Natasha remained silent.

“How long has this been going on? Did you ever try and search for Bruce?” Steve shot at her again. Natasha hung her head.

“It’s not like that-,” Natasha quietly retorted.

“Then what is it like, Natasha? We have been searching for him since the day SHIELD fell and you’ve been hiding out here with him the whole time? Is that what this is? Because it damn looks that way,” anger seeped from every word Steve spoke.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Natasha looked back up at Steve. Her eyes were glassy. Steve had never seen her plead like this – to get intensely emotional. Even after Bruce disappeared.

“Try me,” he folded his arms. Natasha shook her head slowly.

“I can’t,” she said.

“I’m giving you a chance, Natasha,” Steve responded.

“When SHIELD fell and I dumped the data on the internet, there were a lot of false flags. Including, much of my file. I can’t tell you about those things and with good reason. Steve, please, please trust me on this,” Natasha said. She had composed herself, her moment of weakness not on display anymore.

This time Steve shook his head. 

“Sam, put her in the jet,” Steve ordered.   
“And what about Mr. Techie over there?” Sam asked.

Steve turned the other way, but still kept view of Bucky. He knit his eyebrows.

“What are you doing here?” Steve questioned Fitz.

“Uhh, on an unrelated note, I am looking for the, for the, uh, for my partner who disappeared... y-you remember? She’s been appearing here for whatever reason and Natasha brought me here to do, uh, science,” Fitz faltered. 

Steve still looked confused.

“Get your things and follow Sam into the jet,” Steve stated blankly.

Sam placed a hand on Natasha. He knew there was no easy way to subdue her, she could easily out-maneuver him. She had already done it a million times.

“Wait,” Natasha said, not to Sam but to Steve.

Steve turned to her again.

“Let me hook him up so he doesn’t run out on you,” Natasha said, the first time she was acknowledging Bucky to Steve.

Steve looked at her warily. He nodded, allowing her to do so.

Natasha slid gently from Sam’s light grip on her. She looked directly at Bucky, who had remained in his corner the entire time. It was the same corner he liked to do pull-ups on. Steve reached behind him to fake itch his neck, but he was really just setting his hand on his shield in case Natasha was about to double or triple or whatever cross him at this point. But Natasha stuck to her words. She approached Bucky in a delicate manner. She bit her lower lip. She placed a hand on the forearm of his metal arm. A slight twinge in Bucky caused Steve to grip his shield, Fitz observed as he was standing behind Steve.

Natasha led Bucky over to the press in the middle of the room. At all times, Bucky never took his eyes off Steve. His eyes, filled with a mixture of quiet rage and inquisitiveness. Natasha eased Bucky on to the floor and gently coaxed his arm to rest on the press. She brushed her against his knee as she stood up from the floor and proceeded to winch the machine back into pinning his metallic arm. Bucky briefly looked up at Natasha as she stepped away from the machine. She lingered for a second longer and then turned to let Sam lead her way out. Fitz followed in uninstructed tow, rolling the equipment behind him.

Sam locked both Natasha and Fitz up inside the Quinjet. The glass box was big enough to fit and strong enough to contain the Hulk. Soon after they were put on the jet they were airborne and would be stateside in just a couple of hours. Natasha could tell the plane was on autopilot, Sam likely stayed behind. She sat in her corner of the box, her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms draped on top. Fitz sat with his legs crossed in an opposite corner.

“You love him.” Fitz said to Natasha. Natasha looked up at Fitz.

“That’s why you can’t tell Captain America,” he added.

Natasha’s eyes squinted, they were glassy again.

“And what do you know of love?” Natasha said.

“I know that what you’re feeling right now is how I feel about Jemma, and how I’ve felt about her the first time she left and now that she’s disappeared. I know I’d do anything to protect her and I would do anything to get her back, but now I don’t know if I have that chance,” Fitz responded.

“They’ll let you go back to Coulson and have him reprimand you. Coulson won't stop you from doing your work. I’m in for a tougher ride then you once we land at headquarters,” Natasha’s words were almost comforting to Fitz. 

“But you do love him, the Soldier?” Fitz probed again.

“I do,” she sighed.


	13. Funny You Should Ask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz reaches a defining moment while Natasha hits a low.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like this part of the story!
> 
> I'm going away for a two days will probably not have access to wifi to update. But ya never know.
> 
> Title comes from Funny Should You Ask by The Front Bottoms

The wheels touched down and moments later, the bay door was open and scores of SHIELD agents boarded the jet. Like Natasha had guessed, it had only been her and Fitz on board.

Fury, with Coulson at his side, came down through the center of the troops. They stopped right in front of the containment box. Fury crossed his arms and Coulson just had a disappointed expression.

“Clint’s here, too,” Fury stated. 

Natasha grimaced while standing up. Fitz followed suit, and tried to avoid eye contact with Coulson. A SHIELD agent unlocked the container and opened the door for Natasha and Fitz to exit.

“I thought you would do better then to land yourself in a box again,” Coulson jabbed at Fitz.  
“I didn’t know it was my fault that Ward dropped Simmons and I into the ocean,” Fitz retorted. He shouldn’t have been so irritated, but being captured by his own organization and flying through so many time zones in a singled day had meddled with his head.

As Fitz and Natasha were escorted off the plan, the remaining Dwarves popped around the corner of the jet. Fitz was surprised to see them, as was everyone else. He hadn’t recalled them back in the warehouse. They must have all completed their search and since the directive wasn’t canceled, they continued on with returning, and they returned all this way.

“I was using them for research,” Fitz explained. Coulson allowed him to put the Dwarves away for now with the rest of the equipment. 

After, Fitz and Natasha were separated. Natasha was marched in the Avengers headquarters, her weapons had been removed, her suit disabled, and her hands bound. It was like a funeral march. Fitz, however, was walking freely beside Coulson to Coulson’s jet. Mack and May were waiting outside.

“Well, all right Turbo, getting involved with international espionage,” Mack tried to make light of the situation.

“Now is not the time,” Coulson quipped. 

They all strapped in, except for May who stayed in the cockpit to man the plane. 

“Talk, Fitz,” Coulson demanded. He was still composed, but there was a rising anger in his voice.

“Agent Romanoff came to me and said she had a lead on Jemma. I couldn’t say no. So I went. She brought me to a warehouse in god knows where eastern Europe and the Winter Soldier was there. I don’t know why but he was docile. He never once tried to attack or harm either of us. I ran a few tests on the area because the Soldier had told Agent Romanoff a British girl kept visiting him and disappearing. Romanoff got the idea that it may be Jemma from her visit here, so she enacted on it. She showed him a picture of Jemma and he confirmed it’s Jemma he had seen. I was trying to find out why,” Fitz huffed.

“We’re going to have to confiscate the equipment and send it back to Fury’s team for analysis,” Coulson said.

The color from Fitz’ face drained fast.

“With all due respect, Sir, the information on those devices may be our key to finding Jemma. Excuse me, my key, because it has been weeks and weeks since Jemma’s been gone. Everyone else has thrown in the towel, you’ve barely cared and have been mostly off collecting new people for your little secret team. I will never stop looking for her!” Fitz spat out. 

Coulson remained quiet for some time. Mack was taken aback. Fitz took off his 

Some hours later, another Quinjet arrived at Avengers HQ. It contained several SHIELD agents, Captain America, Falcon, and the man formerly known as The Winter Soldier. This was unknown to Natasha, who sat in another containment cell. A table had been set up in front of the glass. There was about to be a meeting.

She was alone until Fury entered the outer room by himself. He came right up to the glass and watched Natasha for a few moments. She was lying on a bench with her eyes shut, but not sleeping. She could feel someone watching her. 

“When we wrote your file we glossed over a few things. I trusted you because Clint trusted you. Now, I have no idea who you are. It better be a damn good reason why you can’t tell us or so help me Natasha, you will have to answer to every SHIELD member you have crossed with your actions,” Fury said.

Natasha paid no reaction.

“I could bring in our best interrogator right now to get you to talk, but you know the difficult part about that? That would be you. So don’t make this difficult on yourself,” Fury followed up. After his speech he took a seat at the table.

Natasha slid into upright position. Her eyes were heavy but not from sleep. The door in the room opened and Steve, Sam, Clint, Wanda, the Vision, Maria Hill, and several other high-ranking SHIELD members that filed in. They joined Fury at the table and paid little mind to Natasha standing just past. Clint didn’t even look at her.

“Bucky is contained and being evaluated at the moment, have you all read the briefing from today?” Steve was the first one to speak. There was a muttered response.

“The question now to be asked is what do we do? What do we do with Bucky, what do we do with Natasha?” Steve continued on.

Clint took over from there.

“When I introduced Natasha to SHIELD as a potential member instead of a prisoner of conflict, we knew her past was going to be an issue if word got out. We sat her down, picked through some of it, added in false-positives, and called it a day. I trusted Natasha- and I still do. I want to know why we can’t go on from here as if it’s just another part of her undisclosed past,” Clint was defending her, but it was so strange for him to speak as if she wasn’t there. She was standing just feet behind him.   
“Because we have been actively searching for the Winter Soldier for months, she lied to her team members, disobeyed procedure, and for all we know has been helping him since before the fall of SHIELD,” Steve retorted, annoyed that Clint wasn’t on the same page as him.

“Steve- Tony will be here soon, he’s just heard that you have the Soldier,” Maria Hill said, cutting through the rising tension.

“You can’t let Tony near him,” Natasha said, her voice hoarse. The whole table turned in surprise.

“The Winter Soldier is responsible for Tony’s parents’ deaths. Zola told us this, I didn’t know this before,” she continued. 

Steve nodded in confirmation. Wanda was especially intrigued about this piece of information.

“You’ve spent time with him, I’m assuming, does the Soldier know who he is? Who he was before?” Fury asked.

“He knows things vividly from the past few years, but before that it becomes a haze from repeated brainwashing,” Natasha responded. This was stuff she could say without a problem. Even though it still hurt.

There were loud footsteps running down the hallway. The door flew open and in popped a SHIELD agent, huffing. He had everyone’s attention the way he barged into the room.

“Captain,” he directed to Steve, “there was a strange disturbance at Barnes’ containment. A person appeared for a few moments and then disappeared.”

Natasha’s eyes widened. It was that Jemma girl. Maybe she wasn’t connected to the location by chance, but connected to the Winter Soldier. There was a small bit of relief in Steve’s mind; he remembered what the scientist had said earlier to him, that he was doing research for a missing person. That wasn’t a lie. Steve and mostly everyone else stood up to exit and check out the commotion.

Someone stayed behind. The Vision instead turned and walked up to the glass, and then through it to be in the cell with Natasha. 

“You seek a way of returning the Soldier’s memory?” The Vision asked. Natasha nodded slowly. 

Do you know of an object that has played with people’s heads before?” The Vision continued.   
Natasha understood. It should have been so clear as day to her.   
“The Tesseract,” she said.

“The Tesseract,” The Vision echoed.


	14. Wolves (You Got Me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes the world continues on when you can't do anything yourself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I miss writing really descriptively, and haven't been doing it too much in this fic, so this chapter kind of circles back to my original writing roots, a bit. 
> 
> Title this time Wolves (You Got Me) by DREAMERS
> 
> Lyrics are pretty great on this song.
> 
> I know there may be some confusion stemming from 'The Tesseract' ending in last chapter, but I'll do my best to make sense of what I mean. If it helps, I'm taking a page out of Ed Brubaker's Captain America The Winter Soldier run (to which the movie is based on) and Marvel 616. Creative liberty, of course!

It is a little known fact that each time Captain Rogers came across a fallen soldier, despite whichever side he fought for; Steve would dedicate a moment of silence. Peggy Carter saw this, the Howling Commandoes did, and so did Bucky Barnes.

When Bucky fell off that train to what Steve thought was his imminent death, there was no body to mourn. There was no pause for silence. Steve watched. There was no body to bury, leaving Bucky with an empty grave. Steve never got a chance to visit it before his plane crash, but once he was unfrozen he visited the beautiful plot Peggy had arranged for Bucky. Bucky and the rest of the Howling Commandoes, the ones who had passed through the years were all grouped together in Arlington National Cemetery. Steve’s grave was there, too, but once he saw it, he petitioned for it to be turned into a memorial marker. He hadn’t died yet, the space deserved to be dedicated to those he had served with. But Bucky, Bucky had died for all he knew. 

The first time Steve visited the Howling Commandoes section of the cemetery an elementary school group had just left. Their teacher had prompted them to write letters to the passed Commandoes. Steve picked one of the letters off Bucky’s tombstone to read. It was a letter from a little girl commending Bucky on serving and falling. She likened Bucky’s friendship to the friendship she has with her own best friend. It was poignant letter from a 9-year old. 

So knowing Natasha hadn’t been truthful from the very start when he was looking for the Winter Soldier, stung. He had fought alongside her in so many missions, and the fact this remained a secret, that each time he visited the graves of his old friends or to the hospital bedsides of frail and deteriorating ones, she could have offered him a glimmer of hope to know Bucky was out there. 

Now he stood looking over at his old friend, caged up, a physical shell of whom he used to be.

“This is the man that killed Stark’s parents?” Wanda asked. She was always interested in the affairs of Tony’s life.

“The Winter Soldier has killed a lot of innocent people,” Steve replied, the very words making it out of his mouth painfully.

“But Bucky only killed when war demanded it,” Sam tried to soften the blow. It was a nice effort, and doubly nice for Steve to have connected with a soldier from present day who understood that sometimes bad things had to happen for there to be good.

Steve had asked Fury to get Coulson on the phone so he could speak to the science guy that was with Natasha. Steve had just watched a video playback of the girls brief visit. Fury entered the room, but Tony was already blazing past him.

Tony had madness deep-seated in his eyes. He walked straight up to the glass partition separating the group of people and the Winter Soldier. Everyone shifted nervously, a few people had begun to say something but stopped short. There was silence.

“I want capital punishment,” Tony finally said after several long spread-out moments. 

“That is-,” Steve began to say, anger boiling up under his skin. Steve tried to remember Tony, for as intelligent as he was, could make himself out as a buffoon when he said things like that.

“That man,” Tony started, cutting off Steve, and pointing to Bucky behind the glass, “killed my parents. Capital punishment.” 

“Well that person is also my friend, who was brainwashed and has had no control over the things he’s been sent to do, and unfortunately he’s committed some pretty heinous things under the guise of someone else’s control. That’s not for you to decide,” Steve barked back.

“Cool it you two,” Fury boomed from behind the group, he made his way forward to cleave Tony and Steve apart.

Although Steve wasn’t clear on what would happen, he was certain it wasn’t going to be easy.

The Vision had left, off to find the answers that arose from the conversation Natasha had with him.

Natasha was alone again. Each second she was alone reminding her of how alone she had been the past few years.

She sat in the Avengers prison cell, the one she helped design to be unbreakable, reminiscing on the life she has lived, lied about and was currently hung up in.

But most of all, she thought about the first time she met the Winter Soldier. She was 17, on her last leg of the Red Room program. The Soviets had control of him. They brought him in to the classroom. Explained to the remaining young Widows who had survived this long he was to teach them. This was going back years and years ago. While her birthday said the 1980’s, it was one of the first lies on a long list of them. She had been around for much longer, and had been with the Winter Soldier for a good chunk of that time. 

She remembered the last time she saw him before he disappeared until she saw him in Odessa. She didn’t know at the time it was Hydra who now had his reigns. She loved him still. She didn’t know if he even remembered her. Steve and her had more in common then he would have guessed. He longed for his best friend and she longed for the love of her life.


End file.
